The 10 biggest (and overdone) Super Bowl story lines

Maybe you heard — the Harbaugh brothers will be coaching

January 21, 2013|Dave Hyde, Sun Sentinel Columnist

Take cover. Here it comes. The Brother Bowl. The Harbowl. Two weeks of hearing how Jim and John Harbaugh turned every bike ride as kids into a race, every family dinner into an eating competition, every game of tiddlywinks into a war.

Until Super Bowl kickoff, you'll hear, read, watch and have pounded into you how they've turned America's game into a family dinner. They'll be discussed like the Wright Brothers, not the Manning brothers. The Super Bowl coaches have the same DNA!

Got it yet?

Tired of it already?

Two weeks of this. And that's just the start of what's coming. Here's the list of the Ten Super Bowl Storylines That Will Be Drilled Into You Until Kickoff:

1. Ray Lewis is retiring. Did you hear? Maybe you heard this when he announced it to headlines three weeks ago. Maybe you heard it shouted after beating Denver two weeks ago. Maybe you saw him crying on the New England field Sunday. We get it. He's retiring. He's also about to break Tim Tebow's use of "God" in sports, if anyone's counting.

2. The Next Generation of Quarterbacks. No Manning. No Tom Brady. No Aaron Rodgers. No Drew Brees. Just a kid with nine starts in San Francisco's Colin Kaepernick against a veteran in Baltimore's Joe Flacco trying to make the leap to greatness. Can they handle the pressure? Can their nerves handle the football come kickoff?

3. Which could-have-been-a-Dolphin grates the nerves more? OK, this isn't a national story. But as a local one I rate it like this: 1) Anquan Boldin could have been a Dolphins twice — first, when linebacker Eddie Moore was picked 49th overall rather than Boldin at 54th; next when he went to Baltimore as a free agent in 2009; 2) San Francisco linebacker Patrick Willis, who was taken 11th when Ted Ginn was taken ninth; 3) Flacco, whom the Dolphins liked but Baltimore traded up to take 18th overall. The Dolphins thought he might fall to their 32nd pick.

4. Can Old-School Football Return to the NFL? Somewhere, Bill Parcells' heart is palpitating. Big defense. Big running games. Want to party like it's 1999? Sorry, this ship has left the port. The outlier to the playoffs was Baltimore holding New England to 13 points. You need a pass rush and a secondary playmaker on defense. But there's a reason why seven of the eight head coaching vacancies were filled with offensive coaches. It's a scoring league.

5. Colin Kaepernick's birth mother wants to meet him. Kapernick was adopted by a Wisconsin couple. His birth mother hasn't met him, though she wants to do so. And many in the media will gladly write this heart-tugging story without questioning this: If Kaepernick doesn't want to meet her, will her talking publicly about this help her cause in any way?

6. The Blind Side, The Sequel. Nevermind Michael Oher starts as the Ravens' right tackle. He has a great back story as the kid from the movie "The Blind Side." Someone re-tell it. Call re-write. Call Sandra Bullock. And get Nick Saban a nomination as best supporting actor this time.

7. Where's Cam Cameron? Someone get him on the phone. Please. Maybe this explains the Dolphins' 1-15 season in 2007. When Cameron was fired as the Baltimore offensive coordinator in December, the offense took off. Flacco had a 114.7 quarterback rating in the playoffs. What's Cam have to say?

8. Alex Smith to the Jets? Because it's New York, and because the Jets are a circus, the 49ers' recently reserve quarterback will become a story. He was the NFL's third-rated quarterback when he was benched. Now he'll be gone somewhere. And the Jets need a quarterback. Step right up, hurry, hurry …

9. The Return of the 49ers. Nothing sells like nostalgia. Steve Young, Joe Montana, Dwight Clark, Eddie DeBartolo. The 49ers make their return to the Super Bowl after 18 years away and they'll be treated like royalty. Nevermind it's been, again, 28 years for the Dolphins.

10. And, yes, the Harbaugh Brothers. Jim coaches San Francisco. John coaches Baltimore. John is 15 months older. Jim is more athletic. On and on it'll go. And on.